resp.," vi, 70-85.

[768] Pitt MSS., 121.

[769] "Castlereagh Corresp.," vi, 100; "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 344.

[770] Gifford, "Life of Pitt," vi, 802; Lord Rosebery, "Tomline's
Estimate of Pitt" (1903), p. 16.

[771] Pitt MSS., 142.

[772] In the "Hardenberg Memoirs" (ii, 353) it is stated that Harrowby
offered Holland to Prussia. Every despatch that I have read runs counter
to this assertion. If Harrowby made the offer, it was in sheer
desperation and on his own authority; but he nowhere mentions it.

[773] Chevening MSS.; "Notes and Queries," 12th November 1864. Mr. John
Upham of Bath on 10th March 1806 sent these particulars to Lord Chatham.
Gifford ("Life of Pitt," vi, 803) wrongly states that the journey took
four days.

[774] The house has been very little altered since 1806, and not at all
on the side shown in the accompanying sketch, which, by kind permission
of Mr. and Mrs. Doulton, was done by my daughter. The room over the
veranda is that in which Pitt died.

[775] Pretyman MSS.

[776] Stanhope, iv, 374.

[777] Pretyman MSS.

[778] "Castlereagh Corresp.," vi, 103-112, 119.

[779] Stanhope, iv, 375; "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 346; "Dropmore P.,"
vii, 327

[780] "F. O.," Austria, 77. Mulgrave to Harrington, 10th January 1806.

[781] "Castlereagh Corresp.," vi, 126.

[782] R. P. Ward, "Memoirs," i, 176.

[783] Pretyman MSS.

[784] Lord Rosebery, "Tomline's Estimate of Pitt," 18; "Dropmore P.,"
vii, 330.

[785] Stanhope, iv, 381.

EPILOGUE

Now is the stately column broke
The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke,
The trumpet's silver sound is still
The warder silent on the hill.
SCOTT, _Marmion_.

This noble epitaph to the memory of Pitt conveys an impression alike of
heroic endeavour and of irretrievable failure. It is the Funeral March
of Chopin, not of Handel, and it echoes the feeling of the time. An
impenetrable darkness hung over England. Ulm, Austerlitz, the armistice,
and the desertion of the Allies by Prussia were successive waves of
calamity, which obliterated all landmarks and all means of safety. The
dying words of Pitt found response in every breast, with this
difference, that, while he was proudly conscious of the correctness of
his aims, the many, who judge solely by tangible results, imputed to him
the disasters of the war and the collapse of the Coalition. Even
Auckland exclaimed that the continental alliances had be